Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
A milliner's daughter in Long Beach
Elly worked hard to earn a living as a hat maker while Helga adapted easily at Julia Richmond High School. In the summer, they took a room in a beach town on Long Island.
Meeting Harriet Berkowitz
Harriet Berkowitz was doubly distanced from her Rabinowitz roots, first by her father’s partial family estrangement and then by his divorce. But she shared a trove of precious family documents and childhood memories after discovering this blog.
Seymour Rabinowitz and Harriet Berkowitz
Seymour, also called Samuel, was partly estranged from the family. He worked as a truant officer in the New York City schools. His daughter Harriet Berkowitz discovered our blog and contributed a trove of precious documents.
Stan finds love outside of a 20-block radius
Home from the war, Stan Ruby was a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. Helga Ringel was a smart, pretty war refugee from Berlin
The corkscrew on eBay—sourcing family artifacts
Out of the files of the U.S. Patent Office and into the peculiar subculture of corkscrew collectors
The North American Ringel branch
When his siblings went to Berlin in the 1880s, Jakob Schia Ringel went to Hamburg, then Glasgow and Montreal. His two daughters raised families in the New York area
Tulbowitz in the USSR—an alternative history
If Sholom Tulbowitz had gone to Dvinsk instead of Rostov, as his cousin did, his Ratner descendants might have grown up in Perm instead of Albany.
Turning over rocks to find long-lost relatives
During the course of my genealogy work, I have discovered and connected with cousins from all my family branches. Here are some lessons learned.